Category: Navel-Gazing

Trailer Park Xmas.

Hello all…I finished up the end-of-term grading yesterday evening, at which point Berkeley and I started settling in to the christmas spirit down here at Murphy Home Base in Norfolk. Here’s hoping everyone out there is having a safe and merry holiday season, and that you get something better from Santa than Dubya’s warmed-over right-wing judges.

Also, if you’re looking for some trailers to tide you over, here’s Leggy & Liam battling freedom-hating infidels in Ridley Scott’s crusader pic Kingdom of Heaven, Russell Crowe trying to out-Seabiscuit Seabiscuit in Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man, a slew of A-listers vamping and vicing in the Robert Rodriguez version of Frank Miller’s Sin City, MTV Films butchering another needless remake in The Longest Yard, and creepy undead kids claiming yet another victim in Boogeyman. Enjoy, and happy holidays, y’all.(Aragorn pic via Fark.)

The Berk Knight.

Gratuitious dog-blogging: Somewhere amid the blur of final papers, blue books, christmas schmoozing, prospectus revising, and freelance projects that have filled up the past week or so, my visiting brother finally managed to get Berkeley to sit still in the Batman costume I bought him a few years ago long enough for me to take a picture. Please, nobody call the ASPCA.

Aunt Joan.

Hello all. I just received word that my aunt Joan passed away this morning after a long struggle with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She was a warm, funny, and brave individual. I miss her already.

At any rate, I’m flying home to be with my family and attend the services, so updates here will be infrequent to nonexistent over the next couple of days. Have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving. Update: As of now (Tuesday night), I’m back in NYC…thanks much for the condolences sent over e-mail and in the comments. They were much appreciated.

Boy, Dog, and Boy’s Dog.

Yesterday’s anniversary made it occur to me that it’s been ages since we’ve had any gratuitous Berkeley pics around here. So, without further ado, here’s me trying to get Berk to pose next to the Boy and Dog Tom Otterness sculpture gracing my street corner (along with Fallen Dreamer) until this weekend. As you can see, there were more interesting goings-on elsewhere…




Five for Fighting.

Ghost in the Machine is five years old today. Well, what a long, strange trip it’s been…I must say, I don’t think I ever envisioned this lasting half a decade when I began back in 1999, particularly when I’ve never been able to keep a journal-journal for longer than a year or so. And to be honest, I had been considering taking a hiatus of late…Even before the election, I’d been feeling thin and stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread, and since then — as with many of you, I’m sure — my frame of mind can get quite Boromir-ish at times. But, that being said, blogging’s in my blood at this point, and the onset of Dubya II seems a particularly terrible time to put the keyboard down. Besides, how else am I going to find an outlet for my political antipathies and terminal fanboyisms? So y’all are just going to have to deal with a nervier, punchier GitM in the weeks, months, and years to come…five years down, and here’s to many more.

Boo.

A very Happy Halloween to you and yours (Fanboy pumpkin courtesy of the worth-perusing Zombie Pumpkins.) As I said before, I’d been thinking of dressing up as Shaun of the Dead, until I wavered on growing the goatee and couldn’t procure a cricket bat from my Aussie &/or Jamaican friends as easily as anticipated…perhaps next year. Then, I briefly flirted with dressing up as Mosh-Eminem, since it’s both topical and extremely simple (urban camo pants notwithstanding.) But, I finally went back to my first idea and chose Donnie Darko — skeleton costume, hoodie, pill canister (full of jellybeans), and Watership Down — despite my total and utter lack of Gyllenhaality. At any rate, have a good one and be safe out there: we’re going to need your votes to prevent a nightmare on Tuesday…

Immovable Type.

Well, GitM has been running slower and slower ever since I installed Movable Type 3.11 a few weeks ago, and, yesterday afternoon, the server decided it had had enough. So I’ve been locked out of the blog here for the past 24 hours, and MT is still running slow as molasses. I also discovered my digital camera batteries have all gone the way of the dinosaur, which may nip my proposed Flickring in the bud too. Sigh…it’s been a very entropic week.